World Should Stand for Unification of Koreas and Reject American Monkeyshines

TEHRAN (FNA)- North Korea has called on "all Koreans at home and abroad to make a breakthrough for unification without foreign assistance.”

The rare announcement, which was made via the official Korean Central News Agency on Thursday morning, called on all Koreans to "promote contact, travel and cooperation between North and South Korea." It added that the North will "smash" all obstacles on the path towards the reunification of the Korean Peninsula, while stressing that military tensions on the peninsula were the "fundamental obstacle" for the better ties with the South. Joint military drills with "outside forces" were also hindering the progression of ties between the two Koreas, it added.

The announcement was issued after a delegation of North Korean officials and ice hockey players crossed the border into South Korea on Thursday for joint Olympics training. The group includes 12 North Korean players who will form a combined women’s ice hockey team with their southern counterparts at next month’s Winter Olympics in the South Korean mountain resort of Pyeongchang. Under an agreement worked out during the first official talks between the two Koreas in two years, the joint team will wear unity jerseys and march under a unified peninsula flag at the Games’ opening ceremony on February 9.

Unsurprisingly, the official White House says Vice President Mike Pence will also attend the Winter Olympics in South Korea, with an eye seemingly toward ensuring that North Korea’s attendance of the event doesn’t lead to improved relations. They claim North Korea’s Leader Kim Jong Un intends to “hijack” the Olympics with his country’s involvement, and that Pence will be there to offset the “charade” that is North Korea’s Olympic team.

This is while bilateral talks between North and South Korea have already improved relations in recent weeks, and a big part of that is their agreement on the Olympics. The US clearly has problems with this improved relations between the two, and has gone to great lengths to present North Korea as somehow trying to trick everybody in being willing to negotiate. The hope appears to be that Pence can undermine this actual goodwill, though exactly how he manages to do this without making the US look like an obvious and literal spoilsport remains to be seen.

But we all know how Washington already imposed sanctions on North Korea and Chinese firms and individuals on the pretext of supporting Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program. The US Treasury Department continues to systematically target individuals and entities doing business with Pyongyang, including officials complicit in North Korean sanctions evasion schemes. The US Treasury has also imposed sanctions on officials belonging to the Workers Party of Korea who are operating in China, Russia and Georgia’s Abkhazia region and urged those countries to expel the individuals.

On this momentum: No doubt a US nuclear war with North Korea would be disastrous. As Pyongyang has shown, however, there are peaceful diplomatic alternatives. For South Korea, which would bear the brunt of any American conflict with North Korea, there is no military option. As a group of 58 retired US military leaders acknowledge in a letter to Trump, that military action “would result in hundreds of thousands of casualties.” The people of Korea, North and South, the peoples of the region, and United Nations member states all want peace.

The Winter Olympics and Paralympics offer a unique moment to promote peace on the Korean Peninsula. On a very encouraging note and against Washington’s ill intentions, in November 2017, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution calling for an Olympic Truce, or a cessation of hostilities during the Winter Games, which gained the support of 157 Member States including both Koreas and future hosts of the Olympic Games: Japan, China, and France.

The Olympic Truce - a tradition which dates to the ancient Greek Olympics - represents an important opportunity to defuse tensions and begin the work of reconciliation on the Korean Peninsula. The world should stop the United States from spoiling this unique opportunity for reunification and fully support both Korean governments’ current efforts to restore a peace process.

To this end, the UN has a special responsibility to demand broader diplomacy as well. The world body should call for action during the Winter Olympics (February 9 - 25) and Paralympics (March 9 - 18), as well as the broader period of the Olympic Truce (February 2 to March 25). It should call on its regional members like Japan, China and Russia to organize regional peace forums or other events to stand for diplomacy and support the People’s Peace Treaty.

The coincidence of the Winter Olympic and Paralympics being held in South Korea this year is a historic opportunity for peace and reunification in the Korean Peninsula that cannot be missed. Those who reject America’s military adventures and wars in this volatile world must fully take advantage of it. Lest they forget, this advantage is temporary, but the success will be matchless.